


(Romance Writing Test) - Of Snow Falls and Tender Hearts (Spoiler Warning: Sebastian and Neferiti's first kiss.)

by DefiantCandle17



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:43:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28311087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefiantCandle17/pseuds/DefiantCandle17
Summary: This is a romantic writing test in which a potential future chapter for The Dark Dragon: The Bringer of The Storm is shown. I am treating this as a fluffy Christmas themed one-shot but hope to make this a future chapter as well, so there are mild spoilers and revelations for the first chapter of the Dark Dragon between the fates of the two main characters, the naive yet noble Prince Sebastian and the dark and passionate Queen Neferiti.This also serves as a Christmas present to a very dear friend of mine who has supported me since I was in my Game of Thrones writing phrase. To that person, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Safe Holiday.Please let me know what you all think and give a kudos and share to any other potentially interested audiences!
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	(Romance Writing Test) - Of Snow Falls and Tender Hearts (Spoiler Warning: Sebastian and Neferiti's first kiss.)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a mature rated fic with some element of graphic intimate descriptions involved, not not fully Safe For Work!

Of Snowfalls and Tender Hearts

Or Alternately:

The First Kiss.

The wind softly whistled through the pillars of the cloister courtyard, outside the grand chapel that dwelt within the grand silver walls of the castle, dwarfed by the great keep and towers of Rochlann Castle. The snowflakes, mildly disturbed by the whisper, were momentarily stirred into a flurry, dancing through the sky before resuming their lazy, graceful descent towards the unprotected garden. The borders of the snow was determined by the square design of the cloister while the inner walkways remained protected by the snowfall, but not from the cold that permeated the atmosphere.

Sebastian was glad for the wool stitched into the lining of his breeches, his knee-high boots and the inside of his dark maroon and black-striped doublet, with flared bauble accoutrements to his wrists and to his shoulders. The pelt of the great bear rested somewhat cumbersomely on his shoulders and back, but it was warm enough for Sebastian to negate the use of his cape. Having its thick coattails eventually become damp and become a weak plough to drag behind him often made walks in the snow a bit of chore, so the great thick pelt that was cut to cover his shoulders and the whole of his back, to nestle around his neck and warm it with its fur was a welcome change. His doublet was tailored to stetch down with its own oblong coattails to almost the top of his knees where his white breeches met his brown leather boots, both at the front and back of his legs.

His black leather belt, embroidered with intricate kaltic woven designs that snaked in and out of their weaving lines like silver vines, carried his dagger on the right side of his waist, the holster waving slightly as his leg brushed it while he walked along the sheltered pathway. His breath brushed the black and brown hairs of his moustache and beard as he sighed to himself, rising in heated vapour to wash over his face.

He had only left the hall for some fresh air, to take a break from overseeing the preparations for the Yuletide festival. While some duties, such as overseeing the preparations for the food carts to be wheeled under heavy guard to be distributed amongst the poor slums and the homeless shelters was not exactly a chore, the discussions of the seating arrangements for the visiting nobles, lords, chieftains, and jarls had been exhausting to say the least. Being too careless with such plans could result in a serious fall out between representatives of certain foreign and neighbouring powers, with the potential to reignite old conflicts as well as kindle new ones. Rivals as well as old allies and potential new ones had to be seated with as much respect and care as hallowed guests, for as Father would have it, all would be treated with the consideration fitting of a friend to the king. Then there was the seating of his own nobles, lords and court members. The rich tossers and lick-spittle wastes of space vying for favour and even more wealth and fortune in the court of his Father. All on account of Rochlann’s power being the greatest in all of Longland.

The addition of another magic sword to add alongside the sword of the king that won Longland and her sister-realms from the rule of chaos and strife that had gripped the isles west of Herupia seemed to almost compound the stream of nobles and courtiers into Father’s castle. All of them deeming their own presence “a necessity for the good of the realm”, for the political stability and representation of the good people of the United Realms. Whatever the hell that meant. It seemed to make less sense the more the noblemen insisted on harping on about it. Father was the one with the magic sword, blessed by the old Kaltic gods and the One True God Paxath Leonis. He was the one with true power, and the nobles were there to suck on his wealth like parasites, ingratiating and embedding themselves so in the fabricated, vapid world of high society that to remove them would do more damage to the realm than good. Doing so would be considered too authoritarian, even tyrannical, depending on how such a gesture would be done, and would be deemed too unwise. And yet Sebastian found himself pondering it more often than less these days.

The festival of Yule was a gateway for the rich and higher folk of Longland to bask in the wealth of his Father’s kingdom, and yet Sebastian felt more cause to add to his sense of chagrin rather than his glory and pride that he felt when he was younger. He was thankful for Mother’s cynical words and worldly perspective, more wise than weary of the true intentions of the rich snobs and miserly cretins that swarmed his castle like locusts.

Sure, they respected the will and authority that is the god-given right of kingship, but surely if the nobles had their way, Rochlann would be a sight of debauchery and decadence not unlike the revellers of old. The palace of the notorious Sun King in Marsellayse would look like a tea party in comparison, if the nobles had their true say in the manor, abusing the power of royalty to sustain their own petty desires while shunning the welfare of their own people and kingdom. Quite rightly, Sebastian believed, the persistent wealth gap between the vice-indulging rich and the struggling poor had earned the upper-class justifiable enmity from foreign eyes as well as classist critics of their own. By his father’s and his own will, Rochlann would not fall into such a wretched state. He would die first before letting such hedonistic pursuits taint the holy image of his kingdom.

He soon became absorbed, mired in his own thoughts of disdain and irritation. Today had been a stressful one, and such thoughts were wont to come to him when his mind and body was fatigued from days of talking on end. He soon found himself wishing, once again, that the second magic sword had not been found.

_I should take it and ride as far away on Pos’s back as I can, go somewhere dark or high and remote, close my eyes and throw my sword to the elements. Perhaps the lickspittles will follow it down whatever ungodly hole in the ground Reskalligar fell into._

He almost didn’t see Neferiti until he glanced to his left.

And on turning, looked on her in full, with her back to him, her ink black hair tumbling down like a crown upon her head and shoulders, tumbling down to a mass of strikingly familiar pelt fur on the back of her shoulders, draping down in a length of voluminous brown thick haired animal fur to the backs of her legs, where the silken, almost transparent web of her gown could be seen obscuring her ankles.

And he was reminded that perhaps finding the second sword was not so much of a burden after all.

Not when it brought a woman like her to his court.

She was silent and still, and Sebastian was aware that she had not seen him or perhaps heard him. Tender warmth bloomed in his chest. It came to him easily, unguarded and not as unwelcome as he often wished it was. The festive atmosphere of Yule Tide remained an infectious one, giving all who celebrated a tranquil, enrapturing sense of peace and wonder. All festive seasons had their powers, their magics that entwined the very soul and spirit as much as any spell would. Yule was once a pagan holiday, adopted by the Church of Paxath Leonis. Perhaps the magic, more than the divine presence of the spirit of the Kestrel, inhabited the minds and hearts of men and women of all races in Athiral, or at least in the realm of the West, in Herupia, and was welcomed perhaps more so in Longland. Longland was not a summery country, and so perhaps, being a northern isle yet not too far north in the upper hemisphere of the globe, the United Realms enjoyed a taste of all seasons to lighten the misery of its often cloudy and rainy days.

Longland loved Yuletide. It celebrated the birth of the Prophet with the wise and gentle soul of the Lion and his quest to vanquish the Dark Dragon with the aid of all races of the world, through the teachings of love and compassion and forgiveness to shun the hatred and malevolent deeds of the Black Wyrm. For he and his many devils worked to spite creation, and to undo the good work of God’s children and steal their souls for their own, turning their eyes away from the holy kingdom of Skithiral, the holy kingdom of heaven in which Pax Leonis and his angels and valkyrion hosts did dwell.

It was a time of gift giving, of sharing and helping your neighbour, and welcoming and indulging man’s spirits. Being kind to the magic that still remained, or perhaps, was only merely hidden until now, that dwelled in the world.

Was it also such a time for other forms of joy as well. Of other means of happiness beyond the goodwill of all Athkind?

A tingle of excitement opened its wings and took flight in Sebastian’s heart, setting his nerves alight and almost making him dizzy, before hot reprimanding shame rose in his cheeks and throat to dampen his ardour.

_No. Not with her. Never. Never indulge this. Welcome goodwill and the gift of giving, but not this._

_Not these wrong feelings._

Sebastian drew in a breath to steady his nerves, which only seemed even more poised to bowl him over, knocking the breath from his lungs.

He could do this. He could control himself.

He would approach her and bid her a good day and converse with her, and courteously treat her as respectfully as an honourably raised prince could treat a respectable lady of high birth, and to any lady in general.

And so he emerged from the shadows of the shaded walkway of the cloister and stepped into the snow, his boots sinking as far as his ankle as he walked, loud and sure, so as to make her aware of his approach, and spoke loud enough for her to hear.

“My Lady?”

She was raising her pale grey right hand, which Sebastian’s heart trembled almost to see was bare, with no glove, or sleeve to conceal the slender, almost lissom arm. She was lifting her palm to catch the snowflakes that settled then melted into soft drops of water in her smooth, lined palm.

“My Lady?”

“Oh…!”

She startled slightly, and turned to regard him, her eyes wide as if interrupted from a deep reverie, which Sebastian mentally winced at as he had hoped to avoid startling her to begin with.

Her violet eyes with hues of indigo fell upon him. Gems of ethereal night looking into his own hazel brown own.

He offered a weak smile to add to his apology as he approached, the snow crunching under his boots as he approached her.

“I’m sorry to startle you. I was just stepping outside to take the winter air and saw you there.”

Her rounded grey face with an elegant, pronounced nose and full lips and a dark, shadowy look to her eyebrows and eyelashes dipped as she briefly fumbled to grip the hems of her pelt covered gown to hold as she made a small curtsy. The pelt, he saw, fell like two massive sinewy arms to drape across the front of her gown, obscuring her shapely form in favour of warmth. He noticed that her slender arms were bare, and her hands too, with their long black fingernails.

“It’s quite alright, my prince. I was lost in my own thoughts, and did not hear you.”

Sebastian reached her as she finished her bow, standing to her full height. Her height was only an inch smaller than him, yet her presence seemed to always be that of a daunting, larger form. As if she was some kind of djinn or spirit that absorbed and commanded all of reality before her.

_A presence larger than life. Not the best words I’d use to describe her, but…_

His eyes looked upon her black hair, as black as a starless night with rivulets of ink, combed and winding along the veil of darkness that fell down the side of her head behind her ears and behind her head.

“I…see you’ve left your hair… undone, My Lady. No braids or weaves.”

Lady Neferiti glanced to her right and lifted her hand to a strand of black hair that fell past her shoulder, caressing it with a tender thoughtfulness.

“I thought perhaps the whispers about my foreign appearance might abate if I…adopted the simple style of your ladies. And I was too occupied with the leaving of my husband to allow my servants to choose a style.”

She looked back up at him, an almost coy expression playing on her lips and her eyes.

“Did you know that in the days of old, the kings and queens of Regnyan royalty shaved their heads to prevent lice from growing in their scalps? That they wore wigs with woven braids and jewels in each strand of their false hair?”

“No, I did not.” Sebastian replied, surprised, letting his imagination guide his returning question. “I suppose, you might wish you had no hair and only the wealthiest artificial hair to don and wear on your head at any day and time of your choosing.”

“Like a feathered hat or whichever takes the fancy of your courtiers and minstrels?” She replied with a tilt of her elegant, pointed chin and a raise of her eyebrow.

“Oh- oh no, not like…” Sebastian tried to correct, already again beginning to feel flustered. Lady Neferiti was of a place of birth outside of Longland, whose traditions, customs and fashions Sebastian had exhaustively researched, yet felt he still knew little of its varieties and intricacies.

“I jest.” She calmed him with a blunt, simple statement and a soft curl of her lips.

“Ah…”

“Besides, from what I know, the hair was not always artificial.” She continued. “Some I believe might have come from people.”

 _People!?_ In the jolt of surprise that overtook him, Sebastian was unable to conceal his expression of bewonderment and perhaps a small amount of horror.

Neferiti saw it and used his wonderment to her advantage.

“I suppose if I get tired of my old hair, I could simply extract some from the scalps of some of the high-born ladies that strut around the court.” A coy, mischievous twinkle seemed to come alive in Neferiti’s eyes as she began to stride to Sebastian’s right, folding her arms together for warmth as she seemed to contemplate her newest wicked scheme.

“Perhaps I’ll take a strand or two from the scalp of say…Lady Rosechenfeld? Lady Arganna? A bit of red and a bit of blonde…and perhaps the whole back of Lady Toshette’s voluminous brown locks.”

Sebastian’s horror and revulsion soon began to subside at the ridiculous nature of Neferiti’s schemes. She was joking. Obviously, now that he saw it.

“I suppose those ladies who would dare turn their noses up at the Prince of Longland in matters other than discussing your royal wealth would look quite silly wondering around with hats on their heads at silly angles to conceal their bald patches.”

“Ahaha…” Sebastian chuckled, lowering his head to shake it as he grinned at the amusing image and placing his fists on his waists. “Yes, I suppose they would…”

He looked up at Neferiti, who hummed in amusement at her own joke.

“You continue to possess a dark sense of humour, Lady Neferiti.”

“I try my best. Although…” Neferiti lifted her finger as if to catch a thought. “…perhaps the Prince of Longland with a reputation as the Golden Prince of Rochlann should surely know to do better than indulge the humour of a Regnyan Witch.”

Her accent to his ears remained elegant, sometimes thick on the tongue she spoke, weaving and clipped and with the weight of a deep intellect, witty and wise and meandering, uncatchable, untameable like a wolf of the wilds, a serpent with coils as slippery as water. Weaving around him as easily as she paced around him right now. Sebastian lifted and stepped out of the impressions he had made to keep her in his sight, measuring her as if in a dance. Or perhaps, a trance.

_No. Stop._

“You are no witch, My Lady.” Sebastian spoke with assurance. “And I will continue to do my best to silence the ones who mock you or name you as such.”

Her eyes dipped and then looked ahead of her as she walked her way around him. Sebastian continued.

“You have every right to be here as any guest would. As any Lady does, regardless of her race, her ilk and her country of origin. All are welcome here, so long as they carry the welfare and goodwill of all of Rochlann’s people in their interests.”

“And what if they sought to create mischief and sow chaos in the very heart of your kingdom?” Her eyes met his, almost at such a concealed, yet for a moment, a startling intensity that it nearly froze his heart. “If they by their very presence would bring ruin and upset the very pillars of law and order upon which your kingdom stands just by existing? By simply…being themselves in a way that follows as easily as breathing? Being true to their own desires and fulfilling their own ambitions, when doing otherwise would be the same as choosing death?”

Sebastian was…confused, yet his eyes never left Neferiti’s as she continued to circle him.

“When doing so would grant them their wildest, darkest dreams, no matter what the cost?”

_You already sow chaos and mischief in my own heart, with scant effort, My Lady._ Came an unguarded thought that arose in his mind, before his policing voice chastened him.

_No! Be silent, fool!_

“My kingdom welcomes those whose beliefs and political persuasions often run contrary to that of my Father King’s. We pride ourselves on welcoming the diversity of Athly life from all corners of the globe while being able to maintain our own power and beliefs, as the rulers of this kingdom, My Lady.” He replied, drawing on his diplomatic side. Neither too bold, nor too humble. As amenable as he could be.

“Ever the diplomat.” Neferiti bowed her head with a sigh. “Ever the rational, all-accepting one, who never has a bad word or notion towards any man or creature in all existence.” She looked back up at him. “I suppose if devils took up squalor in the slums of your great city, you’d have a tolerant word for them as well.”

Memories of his sword flashing through the misty air, severing hands and heads and limbs of screaming, cinder-eyed, needle fanged imps arose in his mind. His gut tightened at the images of battle, the ghosts of adrenaline stirring in his blood.

“I…wouldn’t perhaps have much to say in the words of the treatment of demons.” He tentatively replied.

“Oh? How so?” Neferiti asked.

_How so? As in why?_

“Because they threaten all life in the world and my prime and conditioned response is to lay them low with my sword, as I would any fiend.”

“Even if the myths about them hold a grain of truth?” Neferiti spoke, completing her circle, and beginning anew, side-stepping the depressions made by her boots. “That they were once men, and held passions, dreams and ambitions of their own, before their sins condemned them to forgo all of their humanity. That any of their wives and daughters who joined them were forced to become huntresses of the easily tempted and the vulnerable, in order to survive the tyrannical rule of their dark masters?”

Sebastian bowed his head in thought. What was it about this woman’s words that made him retreat onto the back thought, that made him look upon the darker, bleaker aspects of life not with disinterest or fear, but with curiosity, and contemplation?

_Even if demons were once people, they earned their fates by misusing and abusing the gift of life that God gave them._

He glanced up at Neferiti.

“They deserve death, My Lady. Without question. To let such a fallen being, any fallen being that has spurned God’s grace would only allow the cycle of evil and suffering to propagate across Athiral.”

“And yet some could say the same for man.” Neferiti returned, not looking at him, continuing to stalk around him with her arms curled.

Seb felt a spark of indignancy arise in him, which quickly dampened when he reminded himself that of course, Neferiti was right. History could only prove rather than disprove her words, and Sebastian always did hold true to his Father’s wisdom that the worst of man’s evils inspired the most heinous of hell’s beings and atrocities.

Yet something about Neferiti’s mood and sudden seriousness words disquieted Sebastian’s spirit.

_This talk of death and devils has certainly darkened the mood of this meeting…_

“My Lady, your words are true but verge perhaps on cutting, as if you seek to do injury for a crime or an injury done to you. I wonder if perhaps...you are well…?” He asked, stepping forward.

“Well?” She spun towards him so quickly her combed black mane of hair stirred up like a curtain of silken shadow, her eyebrows knitting as she replied with a tone of surprised indignancy of her own, freezing him on the spot.

“Cutting and injury? You Longlish and your insistence on maintaining decorum and courtesy to those who harm or offend you has always aggravated me. Like the act of talking has to be a sort of Holympian effort as opposed to just speaking plainly and ridding yourself of your enemies or discovering plainly who they are straight away?”

She turned quickly to face him, and any concealment and pretence there was in her once coy demeanour had now given way to a passionate, defiant creature, violet eyed and glaring at him with her teeth bared under her tantalising lips.

And in the face of her own passion, his own came to the fore, conjured by the daring look in her ethereal eyes.

“My Lady…” Sebastian spoke with composure steadying his voice. The scent of her lavender and spiced honey perfume, sprayed in her hair, about her neck, was already deep in his nostrils, infusing with his very lungs to mingle with the cold air inside to make a heady, frosty mixture.

“Speaking as you wish is an easy way to earn disapproval in our courts, up to the point of disgrace, and even expulsion. All in the court is a game when it comes to even the simplest of exchanges in conversation. A game of fronts and feints and shows to conceal yourself and your true intentions. It’s insufferable to do at times and other times as hard as hell, but conducting yourself with grace even in the face of…parasites and pigs, like the trussed up fleas and dis-ingenuine boot-lickers in my father’s court, is better than behaving like a rogue, wanting only to revel in the disadvantage and misfortune of others.”

Neferiti scoffed.

“Of course! How foolish of me a woman so to forget the intrigue of court life so as for a man to explain it to me like a child! How ever could I have survived before I met my Lord Husband in a world where in the cutthroat world of politics, men and women bow and scrape and posture to survive, let alone get what they want? How very flattering of a prince to insult a noble lady so.”

Sebastian blanched at this, feeling his own ground being cut away and devoured underneath his feet at Neferiti’s viper tongue.

“I…” His tongue was heavy, unable to move fast enough to summon an apology for the woman who had whirled on him, snapping at him the same way her snow-furred vulf Nithala snapped at his own sheppevulf Pos for sniffing too close at her flank.

Once again, Nef saw her opening and pressed her attack, her violet eyes regarding him coldly

“And here I was thinking you liked me speaking plainly and honestly to you. Having someone outside of your hallowed court to mock the pointless, stiff rituals and rigors of your overly privileged life.” Neferiti took a step forward, lowering her voice to a barely audible whisper that seemed to rake against his chest.

“…that you enjoyed being taken advantage of by my wit and forked tongue.”

Sebastian almost stumbled back.

That was too bold. Too bold and too familiar. He had ennabled this, perhaps, surely. Or did he play into her hands with her own desire for him.

Damn it all to high Skithiral, why did I come over to talk to her? She leaves my mind in a daze and my heart pounding in its chest like drum, confusing and confounding me and my very thoughts and soul’s desires!

How did this come to pass? She was playful and teasing in the way that, admittedly, he had allowed her to indulge and himself to enjoy, then like the change of a stormy day, her temperament had darkened into that of a wind-blown tempest.

It was clear to Sebastian, as he had suspected, that some form of darkness, some malady of the spirit, plagued Neferiti’s heart, and too often than he was comfortable with, he had strayed past his boundaries to try and allay and comfort her.

Yet would this be the same as before?

“My Lady, you are too bold in your words, and your mood concerns me as perhaps ill. Has your husband done or said anything before his departure that upset you? Anything perhaps I can assist with?”

And at the sight of lines creasing in her forehead and her upper lip curling to reveal pale, slightly greyed teeth, Sebastian knew he had erred.

“My husband?!” She spoke aloud. “Is he my keeper now? Is he to keep my emotions, my very soul under lock and key, or to manage them as a steer herder manages his herds. Whips them into place and servility?”

Sebastian stepped back, raising his hands slightly as a gesture of placation.

“You are not yourself, My Lady. You are acting as if you are possessed, like some wild fae.”

“Possessed? Ha!” More of her sarcastic wit as her eyes widened at his words, her response clearly one of ridicule.

“If only you knew the true meaning of that dark, demon whelping word. Yet here I also am, hearing more words, more talk of foreign beasts that I know nothing or care to know little about!”

Sebastian tried to reason with her, tried to straightforwardly puncture through to the source of this upset.

“What spirit then has made you like this? You are upset, I can see that, but surely not at me.”

“Spirit?” Neferiti replied with incredulity and disdain. “Does it have to be a spirit? Perhaps not everything about me has to be so mystical and enchanting to you on account that I’m a foreign woman perched on the arm of a tall imposing white lord of great wealth, like a trophy gem extracted from a Suthrikan mine, like your colonial Korbesian ancestors did in the days of old!”

“I do not say that!” Sebastian responded, baffled at the extremities that she appeared to be taking his sincere words. “My Lady, I have always welcomed your frank words that hold honesty and truth to them, and value you as a companion I can talk to and confide in outside the vapid interests of the court, but do not think for an instance that I see you as a mere object for my amusement.”

“Is that really so?” Neferiti was unconvinced. “Perhaps you don’t find me fully amusing, but from your lingering eyes and your breathlessness often around me I would say you are obsessed with me. Obsessed not just with my looks and my accent and my biting tongue but purely on account that I am unlike any of the milk skinned women and elvanoe maids that flit about your palace and courts like brightly coloured birds!”

Sebastian’s cheeks suddenly felt warm enough to melt the deluge of clear white snow that continued to fall around them.

“That’s not true!”

Neferiti was striking from somewhere that felt personal, and the rawness of her words and the brazen daring behind her blunt accusation was enough to send Sebastian’s heart reeling.

“You are interested in me because I am different!” She continued, advancing towards him as he retreated. “Maybe it is because like all conquering men who have taken so many lovers of one strip of colour that on a whim you would indulge the tastes of sampling a foreign fruit to your saturated palate!”

_She…accuses me of lying about my honour? About my chastity as an unwed bachelor?_

“My Lady, where has this come from? You lash out at fictions and hidden truths that exist only your mind alone!”

“And what would stop you?” Neferiti gave no quarter, her violet eyes alive now with a resentful, burning hunger in them. Hunger that threatened to swallow his very soul. “It shouldn’t matter that I am married. You’re a prince, the Golden Heir to Artovius who could have any woman he wanted in the world. All men in power exercise their right to override any sacred law to get what they want. Why would I be so fool enough as to believe that for all your pining and conduct as a gentle man that you were someone so insipidly pure. Vowing never to lie with a woman unless she was your promised bride to be?”

_Now she attacks my honour in full force!_

“Because they are my vows and like your ambitions.” Sebastian replied hotly. “And if I assume your earlier veiled analogy about yourself to be true, to break with them is to be as akin to simply forfeiting life itself. To cheapen it and sully it.”

Sebastian glanced back to make sure his steps were taken with care, that he wouldn’t fall back due to the uneven terrain caused by the broken virgin snow under his feet.

“You lie.”

Sebastian’s gaze spun back to meet Neferiti’s narrowed own.

“I am incapable of that, my Lady, you of among many people I hold dear should know.” He defended himself. “It cheapens one’s character and image as a prince. I am as I say I am. I have had feelings, I have pined, and I have loved and lost, yet all my loves have been unrequited or outright rejected. Never have I been with a woman out of wedlock, to dishonour hers and her husband’s bed, nor do I intend to. To do so would invite shame upon me and possibly my whole kingdom.”

Neferiti’s approach did not abate. They had cleared a pathway through the upper north-eastern lawn in the cloister. Sebastian’s heart pounded at the slight flaring of her nostrils and the lowering of her head, her ink black tresses falling past her ears as she lowered it like a bull ready to charge.

“You deceive yourself, my prince.” Something in her tone warned him of a great danger, concealed in a velvet box, yet too tantalising in its form and shape for him to fully tear his eyes away or retreat from.

And then the truth came from her pale lips.

“You want me. I can see it.”

Sebastian’s gasp was far too shaky for his liking, but he was too overwhelmed now to worry about composure. The woman had crossed her boundaries and advanced with daring and boldness that alarmed him, not at her brazen disrespect and accusations, but how his heart in the grip of her ethereal eyes seemed neither willing to relinquish itself nor seek to avail itself from the sinful thrill it had become entrapped in.

God help me…

His feet had turned to tree trunks, rooted in the snowy earth. He tried to will them to move, but he was paralysed, held before the dark woman in the bear pelt, affixed in the grip of her piercing talons.

“Would you like me to speak to you like some kind of foreign barbarian queen to you, deaf and insensitive to your uptight and constricting customs in your painted court?” Her eyes roamed over his face, seeming to savour every moment of its unguarded, hungering gaze. Upon his own eyes, then down to his lips. He swallowed and the violet-indigo gaze of the predator seemed to note the bob of his apple in his throat as he swallowed.

“Live up to your exotified expectations of me like some feral beast to be tamed and conquered?”

_What? No! No I would never…_

“No!” He replied, finding his voice to reply with earnest refusal. “No, I refuse to name you as such.”

“And why is that?” She hounded him, testing him mercilessly.

“Because I refuse to imply that I would fetishize you on account of you being a member of the fairer sex and a different race that holds customs different to my own that a lesser educated man would consider alien or barbaric to begin with.”

“Oh then you are afraid, as you should be.” Neferiti snarled, her eyes seeming to glow with some strange magic about them, bright violet and indigo stars burning hotly in the tranquil silence of the snow cloister. “There is nothing ‘fair’ about me or my sex.” She mocked the use of his word fair like it was an abhorrent wasted fruit on her tongue. “You are a coward and a fool, too afraid or bound by your own code of respect to even dare act on your own lust towards me.

That was far enough. He had let her speak as she wished in his presence for too long. He was the prince for God’s sake, and he would not be so easily swayed or mocked, let alone be called a coward. He could stomach fool, for he knew he was one, and it kept him humble, but never a coward.

“Be silent!” He barked, finding his courage and hiding his tremor as best as he could for raising his voice at her. “You go too far.

“Finally the pup shows some teeth…” Neferiti spoke with mocking praise, her voice filled with contempt.

“Enough, my Lady, enough!” Sebastian placed his foot down, drawing the line. “You have gone too far. Remember whose kingdom you are in and whom you address!”

Neferiti seemed to sway slightly, as if his words were merely an ineffectual gust of wind, but they had their intended effect. Her lips closed over her teeth and she was silent, long enough for Sebastian to recover and speak.

Mother was right. He had grown too close to this woman, this married lady of the elusive and bizarrely named, eccentric looming Lord Racontosh, who always seemed to be not as attentive as a dutiful husband ought to be. Much about the boorish lord with his moustache and tightly combed hair, fine pressed doublet and walking cane, despite being the picture of health as a man numbering in his fifties and in his prime, disturbed Sebastian, and gave him cause for more dislike than approval. But Neferiti his wife seemed now to eclipse that dislike with this irrational, wanton behaviour of hers.

“I realise that…” He spoke slowly before resuming his speed once courage began to return to him. “… in light of our…relationship becoming close, I have allowed myself to become too familiar with you, and you with me.”

Neferiti’s eyes seemed to still flash with rebellious defiance, but mercifully she held her tongue, and Sebastian already found himself wandering if perhaps he was too upfront, too direct, and that he might harm her.

_No, she is being merely respectful, as before. But now I see it seems it was only polite tolerance of my unassuming nature. She despises me, I know it._

“You are a married Lady of noble birth and I am a bachelor prince. It is perhaps for the best that a professional distance be resumed between us, one perhaps built on courteous and respectful behaviour, so as to not invite disgrace on both our houses. You know this as much as I do.”

And to begin mortaring the wall, he returned her husband, whom she should be loyal to as is her wifely duty, to the fray.

“Perhaps there is some… disturbance or dispute in your relationship with your lord husband. Whatever it is, I know not, but it is not my place to interfere, only for me to stand by and wish for the best that it be resolved as amicably as possible. But I cannot be involved further than that. For the sake of gossip and both our reputations, we must stay apart.”

But the moment he mentioned her husband, Neferiti’s eyes flashed and her lips pierced, and he had known he had courted a whirlwind to shred the wall he was trying to erect. Her passion like the wyrm’s wroth rewawakened.

“You conjure distance and place me in my chains with again your patriarchal belief that my Lord Husband is the cause and ruler of my emotions!”

She lowered her hands from her chest, forgetting the cold. Sebastian’s alarm grew rapidly. Whatever she planned to do with her hands, Sebastian did not know how much force he would have employ to drive her off without harming her or disgracing her. She was behaving most un-Lady-like and yet he could not ever bring himself to harm her.

“Neferiti, stop, I command you, as the Prince of this realm to-”

He stumbled back. She came on.

“So much for your progressive, all-encapsulating belief of tolerance and freedom of voice,” She spat at him, her arms gesturing emptily at the air to signify the magnamity of his beliefs. “…Without prejudice or judgement. And yet you think words can easily fix things or undo them, like some coddled boy in his own dream world! What have you to say next!? That sanity has left me and I’m not in control of my own emo-”

Nef’s foot, enclosed in an ornate, golden embroidered black slipper, struck the snow deeper than she expected. Her eyes widened as she lurched forward, her toecap caught, or buried in the wedge of snow Sebastian’s boots had made, and she fell forward.

Sebastian lunged forward as her hands, ungloved and surely cold, lifted to try and catch herself. He did it as a reflex, without thinking, stepping forward with one stride of his right leg to plant as a means to steady himself as he bent down and opened his arms.

Neferiti fell into them, her right hand placed against his chest while her left clutched onto his right forearm. Her voluminous black hair, combed and decorated with melting white flakes like fallen stars. Her sweet perfumed scent filled his nostrils, mingled with the stiff musty scent of the dark bear pelt, and he could see the lines on which her scalp divided the silken waterfall of her hair.

“Easy…” Sebastian spoke, his heart hammering in his chest at just how close she was to him again. “Are you alright? Is your ankle ok?”

He heard her pant, gasping in relief at the sudden shock of falling, feeling her breath washing against the sleeve of his maroon and black doublet.

“It’s alright, let me help you…help you stand.” He spoke, gently pulling her up. He could see her slippered feet part the silken folds of her gown as she righted herself, standing firmly on the ground.

Her left hand reached down to his, and Sebastian startled. It wasn’t as cold as he expected but it was not warm enough to his liking.

“You should be wearing gloves, or a sleeved dress.” He spoke to her wall of ink black hair. “You would likely catch cold in this weather, even with the pelt.”

Something about the pelt she wore was familiar indeed. As familiar as the pelt he wore on his back and neck. Could it be…?

“I thought perhaps the bear would be more suitable as a rug to warm your feet on the stone floor in your chamber, my Lady.” He spoke.

Neferiti snorted softly to herself.

“And I thought you wouldn’t be so bold and foolish enough to go after a bear your people feared as a scourge of your land just to get me a fur coat. I see you made use of your share as well.”

“I did, yes.” He nodded. He only needed a modest amount, for the sake of maintaining the glory of the victory fresh in the minds of the nobles and visitors. The rest was more suited for Lady Neferiti. He had intended it as a considerate gift, for the woman who had been more suited to warmer climes than the one she was in now. The opportunity that arose when rumours of the scourging bear roaming the wilds too close to home seemed almost…pre-ordained, with his concern overriding all logic, and indulging a fool desire to give Neferiti…something, anything that should have been best left alone.

Especially when it could have gotten him killed.

“I don’t think I got to truly thank you.” She spoke

“I…” Sebastian felt himself flush. “I did not…do it just for you. But…I felt, as a prince to his host who…I regard highly, and with your husband…not…”

Neferiti finished the words for him, and he caught a glimpse of her eyes, contemplative and distant.

“My husband does not nearly care enough for my own welfare to see to such petty needs of mine.”

Her other hand slipped down to his left wrist. And slowly, began to nestle and intertwine her fingers with his own. Sebastian did nothing to resist, only turn his hand to meet hers.

“Your husband should at least care to assist his Lady and wife when she is…cold…” He trailed off helplessly, only now realising the possibility that perhaps, this was part of another ploy of hers…

To get close to him, and she had succeeded. He shoved the thought down.

_She tripped in the snow. I had to catch her, I had to. I couldn’t just let her fall._

_She could not be so brazen as to…_

_By Heaven she smells so good…_

Finally, her face turned up to meet his, and the passion that once took hold of her, from possibly a place where she was harmed deeply had subsided.

“And you went alone, hunting for it in the mountain forests like some errant knight. And here I thought you were too entitled to do something so reckless…”

She softly gasped, her clouded breath rising softly up towards his face.

It smelled of tart berry, mingled with the tang of citrus. This combined with the honeyed scent in her hair was intoxicating.

“…And so damn romantic…”

They stood like this, holding each other. Sebastian’s hands continued to hold Neferiti’s and the warmth in her fingers began to grow, as did the warmth that spread to his cheeks, and to hers, her grey skin darkening to a shade of grey.

_What happened to this woman that made her skin turn so grey, and have eyes like violet gemstones…_

For a moment, the only sound that could be heard was the soft sound of a clump of snow slipping from the shaded roof, to strike the pure snow below.

Sebastian’s eyes traced over her elegant neck like a steel-coloured swans, saw the lines where her tendons defined the shape of her neck. He glanced down her chest to see the strange eye-shaped amulet on her chest, bound by a sliver of golden string and realised that under her pelt, she was wearing a gown with a plunging chest. He looked back up, fresh heat blooming in his chest. Why was the woman wondering out here with no more furs or pelts other than the one she draped over her body like a trophy skin of a hunter?

“And… h-h-how do you feel….right now… are you…cold?” He spoke, his foolish question and embarrassment and heady nerves reducing his voice to nearly a whisper.

Her eyes looked up to meet his.

“What do you think?”

Her words seemed like they meant to cut, but held no spite behind them.

A silence passed long and pregnant between them.

And then her eyes flickered to his lips. Sebastian’s heart pounded in his head.

And then it happened.

Her hands extricated from his, lifted to his face, with smooth warm, soft fingers caressing his bearded, unshaven cheeks. She tilted her head up, pulled his face down-

-and kissed him.

Exploratory bites of the lip, tasting of sweet fruit, crushed his upper lip and then his lower lip, taking it in hers as he fumbled to try and keep up, tried to do anything, tried to do something. His very mind was on fire, his heart pounded like a wardrum urging him on to victory. His hands, the warmth of Neferiti’s fingers fleeting, helplessly closed as he failed to fully react, as Neferiti made a soft humming noise and claimed his lips.

His eyes were closed, and he was lost in the sinfully sweet, heaven-filled taste of her.

And when it seemed she had her fill of him, she lifted her hands to the back of his head, her nailed hands gliding through his thick head of curled black-brown hair like a comb, before curling into them, clutching them hard enough to almost pull them out of their roots.

And all care and restraint and due consideration of the sanctity of Neferiti’s marriage, her image and his own dissipated in the rising storm of hot, urgent, emotion-laden desire. His arms curled around her pelt covered back, and pulled her in, enclosing her in his strong grasp. She gasped, involuntarily, her eyes opening to reveal her irises, expanded, laden with heavy, ardent desire.

_Neferiti…my dark queen…my heart…_

He dipped his mouth down to press on her lips again, savouring more of her sweet taste, wet and maddeningly soft under his own. They stood there, frozen in the snow, entangled in their embrace. Her hands left his hair to fold around his neck, holding him close, and Sebastian’s hands travelled up her pelt covered back to find and clutch at her soft hair, wet and soggy from the snow-fall.

He left her lips, hearing a soft moan as she mourned their touch, and then gasped as he kissed along her chin, planting suckling kisses on her skin, before travelling down to the side of her neck. He saw her head fall back as she sighed, gasping as the hairs of his beard and moustache brushed against her exposed flesh.

His hold of her increased, crushing her body flush against his, and even under the pelt, he felt the mounds of her pressing against the layer of his doublet. His tongue soon graced the front of her neck with his lips, pressing one sucking kiss that made her gasp, hotly and harshly.

“Sebastian…” She gasped. Her voice stroked the cords within him, travelling down to his nethers, making him feel the same way he had only felt in fleeting moments of fancy of the other ladies of the court, and sometimes the elf captain of the guard Ilia to his shame, but never like this. Not as strongly and rigorous in its throws as this. Not like this arousal, desire…

He wanted her, and if the noises and mewls she made as he assaulted her neck with his lips and tongue were any indication, she wanted him.

Then her hands fiddled and travelled to his face, pulling his face away from her neck, which was just as well. He would have travelled down the plunging thin gap of her gown if she hadn’t stopped him.

She beheld his face in her hands and opening her mouth, she tilted her chin up. He obliged, closing his eyes as he was claimed by her and her by him. He gasped as her tongue pressed against his own, and his last remaining tethers of restraint broke. Their tongues explored without fear of reproach, licking within their mouths at the roof and about their teeth and against each other, and Sebastian’s desire grew with the surrender of his senses to the drug-like sensation, caressing and carrying his very heart to the centre of

- _a forbidden garden, rich in turquoise waters, an oasis of green and verdant flowering plants and trees, the sun as hot as furnace and the shade cool as the softest furs, and within, in his own mind was her, laid out in the ivy and flower strewn grass, dressed only in ivy to cover an elegant ruined dress, her black hair matted, ruined and splayed out around her head, bejewelled with white flowers, and her skin…her skin was...brown, rich in its ochre, her entire form curved, shapely and dark warm in its smouldering brown glow, laid out as a scintillating goddess, her eyes lidded, her arms askance and open, a finger in her teeth, daring him to come closer and take her in his arms, and then…_

Suddenly Neferiti broke away, ending the kiss with a sharp gasp. The strange vision dissipated, shattered from the moment their tongues lost their duel and their lips parted. Sebastian blinked, reality suddenly returning to him as if he was somewhere else, over than here in the cloister, and looked up at Neferiti. Her heavy, darkened eyes were wide, wide as if she had discovered something that was not expected. Her hands drifted down to his front, before clutching into the front of his doublet, her nailed hands clawing into the very fabric. Panting, she bowed her head and pressed her brow against his chest, filling his nose again with her sweet perfumed scent. He could feel her hot breath tickle the top of his chest hair that started at the bottom of his neck, and wash up his neck and face as the cold took it. He was panting too, his heart thundering in his chest. He dared to lean his chin against her hair, feeling it soft and damp under his own bearded chin.

His own hands pressed against her back, stroking at her hair while holding her close. His own ardour died down, and for another moment, they were just existing, just the two of them, Sebastian and Neferiti, holding one another and panting from the exhaustion of their passionate, unrestrained and deeply intimate kiss.

The question arose in his mind as to what that vision was, and if perhaps, the violet eyed Neferiti possessed some form of magic after all. It was so…dreamy and ethereal, a lush and fertile land with a burning sun that he had never set foot in before.

Yet his words failed him, even as his arousal began to subside. And it was Neferiti who broke the silence.

“I’m…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…” She spoke between gasps. “I don’t…I don’t know what came over me…”

Her grip on his doublet slackened for a moment, before it tightened. It felt as though she was clinging to him for dear life, yet she did not raise her face to meet his.

“My husband, he…he is not a patient man…or a kind one.” She continued, as Sebastian listened. “He said…and did something to me that…”

She trailed off again, before finding her voice again. “Where he comes from…kindness was considered a weakness. To me, seeing someone like you, compared to him, I…

Sebastian could not help but follow the pang of concern that arose within him. He lifted his right hand from the back of her neck to tentatively cup her chin with his thumb and fore-finger, and gently lifted her face up.

“Did he hurt you?”

Neferiti’s eyes blinked and her violet-indigo irises looked to her left, then to her right, deep in thought for a moment, before she lifted her left hand and curled it around his hand, lowering it from her chin.

“…I would rather not speak of it.”

Sebastian shook his head. It wasn’t good enough.

“I can protect you. Keep him awa from you.” He insisted, his words earnest and certain as any holy vow. “Have him arrested once he returns, or declare him exiled while he is away.”

His hands lifted and took hold of her hands, his thumbs rubbing across her grey knuckles.

“I can keep you safe. I want….to keep you safe.”

Neferiti let out a shaky breath and looked down at their joined hands.

“Sebastian…What is within my affair is for me to battle alone. And if you seek to deny me from him, he will retaliate by means which your entire kingdom may suffer.”

“Because of what?” Sebastian asked, insistent. “That mysterious power he possesses?. What is it? Magic? Foreign support? A criminal gang? The favour of a foreign king? Whatever he has, I am not to face him, or come between him and you, if he means to harm you!”

“Sebastian, stop….just stop.” Neferiti shook her head, and when she looked up, her eyes were pleading, concealing something desperate and fearful in their pliant gaze. “Please…do not intervene in what doesn’t concern you…Or what could take you from me.” She lowered her head, unable to face him at her concession, her admittance.

_Take me from you…? She…really does care…_

“So you do care for me.” He stated, and Neferiti was silent, but then her thumbs began to rub against his fingers and the sides of his hands.

“Why…” She spoke. “Why did you have to be none other than yourself?” She looked up at him. “If you truly wear a mask, as I have known so many men to wear then you wear it well, Prince Sebastian…because I’ve come to know it as your face, your true face, and your heart that you bear to the world with no fear of it being wounded.”

She shook her head, looking at him, up and down, as if she could scarcely believe that he existed before her.

“Why? Why can’t you be cruel? Or corrupt, or vain or selfish like all the other princes I’ve met in the past. You, with all your fortunes and entitlements and privileges and yet not one element within you is malign or misshapen.”

“You hold me in high regard, My Lady.” Sebastian assured her. “I am not near the man the kingdom or my name as Golden Prince paints me to be.”

“But that’s exactly what a good man would say!” Neferiti insisted. “A good man! Why must the gods mock me so as to bring you in my path so as to what? Chide me for being wrong about all the men in the world and their base, lustful, glory hounding desires that break the world and crush its people under their feet!”

“My Lady…” Sebastian spoke, trying to calm her with a squeeze of her hands. “You honour me and you honour me too much. Because I would not have shared such a passionate kiss with a married woman if I was wholly perfect, for one example.”

Neferiti pressed her lips together, and Sebastian squeezed her hands again, to keep the warmth in. She was older than him, her being thirty years while his years numbered only five and twenty. Her experience, her confidence, the ease in which he felt could talk with her.

Her eyes searched his lips, and then his eyes, staring at them with an intense searching gaze, and they awakened something in Sebastian’s heart that he could not force down or smother at all. He brought himself forward, freeing his hands from hers to lift them to her cheeks, and leaned forward.

“My Lady…”

Her eyes closed as she sighed in surrender, and the kiss was more chaste, leading with the lips and tasting only their mingled flavours as Sebastian kissed her, about the lips and about her cheeks and nose.

“So beautiful…God help me, you are so…so beautiful.”

And between kisses he spoke.

“You set my very heart on fire…”

“And you send mine soaring into the clouds.” She replied between the touching of their lips.

He pulled away, and pressed his brow against hers, his very soul revelling in this moment, this one moment they shared.

_So beautitful…my heart…my weak sinning, loving heart for you, my Lady._

“I don’t want this to be a passing fancy, my lady…” He spoke. “Nor do I want it to end on this brief exchange, or one night…”

“…What are you saying…my prince?” Neferiti’s voice replied, trembling.

“I’m saying…” He began, and pulled his face away to look on her, his hands cupping her face as if she was a precious gem, a star in his very hands. “…that your husband is a fool to mistreat you and neglect you as he does. You, who deserves the entire world and all the happiness it cab offer. And if not that then all the happiness that those who care about you can give you.”

Neferiti’s eyes narrowed slightly in confusion, then widened with a sudden, beautiful understanding as he spoke.

“Happiness, that only the people who…who love you, can give you.”

Neferiti’s eyes widened, and soon began to sparkle, the small veins in her pupil reddening slightly as they grew wet.

“You…you love me?”

_Yes… yes…_ Sebastian realised. _I have known this for a long time. Known, and wished it not so, wishing and praying and wishing for God and fate to take this feeling from me, to turn my eye to someone else. And yet He saw fit to make you the one diamond, the one lavender wreathed rose in a garden of flowers dull in comparison._

And so he replied.

“With all the affection a love-blind fool can give to a married woman who will never be his….yes.”

Nef lifted her hands hesitantly to clasp around his wrists, her lips parting as her breath began to tremble, and Sebastian spoke more.

“Could this wrong, invigorating love, that colours all my hours and makes me fear that a day spent without your words, your wit, and your genuine affections…is like a day discoloured, lifeless and dim, beyond all compare, be requited? That of all the women and ladies and maids in the world, the only one I desire is you? With all your vivacity, and darkness, your mind, and your passions, that match and eclipse my own?”

Neferiti let out a shuddering sigh, her chest under the pelt hitching as she held back a sob.

“You fool…” She spoke, with none of the sting such words might entail. “…you complete and utter fool. You whose own words and actions make me think of a child’s storybook prince…too good for this world and considerate and brave and reckless, whose own passions for ruling fairly and justly run as deep as the bottoms of the earth, rising to every challenge I see you confront, like a man condemned by the old gods to do the right thing under pain of death!”

Her right hand left his wrist to caress his bearded face as she spoke with her voice growing more bitter, and hoarse to the sound.

“In body, mind and soul, how can I not love you as well, you infuriatingly naïve, sweet man-“

Her other hand left her wrist to take hold of his face, and she shoved her lips against his, her face suddenly wet with melted snow and hot salty tears.

She was sobbing, her eyes clenched shut as she kissed him about his lips and his cheeks and his chin, and her hands found his hair and his hands found hers, as they pledged themselves to one another in the holy silence of the snow covered cloister.

It continued for what felt like eternity wound in mere minutes, with her kissing him, and him kissing her, and all other joys in this life paled in comparison to this golden, forbidden, and heavenly moment.

And come the time when they eventually broke their kiss, Sebastian’s thumb wiping the tears from her grey cheeks, with Neferiti catching his hand to press a hot kiss on the palm of his hand, her sobbing subsided, they looked at each other, and brushed themselves down, hoping perhaps to look the part of simply a Prince and a Lady.

And not forbidden lovers, nor a married lady indulging her lust in the attentions of a unmarried royal bachelor.

Their eyes met again, and where Sebastian expected to feel shame, he felt only a soft sadness, a melancholy that had descended along with a small begrudging acceptance.

Neferiti seemed to feel it too.

“I will not say anything.” She spoke, when he looked at her and opened his mouth to speak. “Not to my Lord when he returns.”

Sebastian nodded, after a short while.

“I…will be silent as well. I will not disgrace you, or slander you. My Lady.” He shook his head. “I would never dream of it.”

Neferiti nodded, and a soft smile crossed her lips, her eyes filled with a rare, sweet affection that would stay in Sebastian’s mind for many years to come, this he knew to be true. She then looked towards the southern passage.

“I…I should return to the court. There are…entertainments I believe being held, in the garden. And wine to be drunk.”

Sebastian nodded.

“Yes…I have my duties to return to as well. The preparations for…the Yule Festival.”

“Yes.” Neferiti acknowledged.

Sebastian nodded again. He decided he should part first.

Stepping forward, he took her right hand and lifted it to her lips.

“Enjoy the garden, My Lady.” He spoke, before bowing his head and kissing her knuckles. His eye caught the slight rise of the pelt as he heard her take a sharp breath in.

He turned, his eyes bowed low out of respect, and walked away.

He was halfway across the court towards the north door when Neferiti’s voice stopped him.

“Sebastian!”

He turned, looking on her there in the snow. The very vision of loveliness and warmth and forbidden desire to him now.

“Yes, My Lady?”

Neferiti appeared to prepare to say something, then looked aside, closing her lips and deciding against it, before she looked at him again.

“How is it that your people say it…” She stopped to consider her words, before looking at him with a soft smile. “Happy Yuletide, Prince Sebastian."

Sebastian’s heart bloomed at her words. It was a greeting that she did not need to entertain or use, but did so anyway. For him.

“And a Merry Yuletide to you as well,” Sebastian replied with a bow. “…Lady Neferiti.”

One last glance at her soft smiling face, with a smile of his own in answer, fond and full of love, real and true, to salve perhaps the guilt of the kiss that they should not have shared.

Or perhaps, to salve the pain of being apart after being drawn so close to one another.

He turned and walked to the door, his boots crunching through the snow as they ploughed a new trail through the unbroken white field.

He wondered as he left as to whether he should provide a gift for her, but then decided against it.

It would not be appropriate, and he had stoked the fires of gossip enough by providing her with a pelt in place of her neglectful husband and lord.

Perhaps, their kiss was more than a gift enough to warm his heart and fill his nights and dreams to last the whole winter season.

Somehow, he knew they would fill hers as well.

And with that thought bringing more warmth to his chest than any hearth could, he reached the door, turned its ring handle, and stepped back indoors, out of the cold, and out of Neferiti’s sight.

 _Until we meet again_ , Sebastian thought, his mind summoning the visage of Neferiti lying in the verdant greenery of the oasis, the sight already as near real to him as a memory…

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think? My hope was to establish a strong sense of chemistry that has long existed between these two characters even this is a one shot. Feel free to quote comparisons from Lancelot and Guinivere and Paris and Helen of Troy if you like?


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